Thursday, April 22, 2010

Jules ~ This is an article I wrote for the Dallas Organic Garden Club's Newsletter. The picture illustrates why vegetables are good, but not the only good thing about having a garden.
Hope you enjoy!

Bud

How to Improve Your Garden Using Your Computer

No, this is not an article about planting keyboard keys and growing Macintoshs from them, but wouldn't that be great!

I learn from the speakers that we have each month, but many of the little gems that I have learned over the last 10 years are from the internet. I am sure that many of you have had this experience as well. The internet will allow folks to seek out new inventive ways of doing things that are just perfect for their own situations or scan through completely unique and not necessarily associated topics and find ideas to adapt to their situations.

So I am going to share some things that I have found with their links and I hope that some of these will help or inspire you. Obviously if you come across links that you think would be good for others in our community then please share them in one or both of the DOGC's communication tools: Our web forums or our facebook site.

So here are a few of my favorite discoveries:

Rotary Compost Sifter
I found this idea while reading a blog. For those of you who aren't familiar with blogs. They are online musings posted by anyone on anything. Marie Tedei has one, I have one, Chi Yeh has one. If any of you have one that you would like to share then you know where to share that info (see communication tools above :o). I found this on Henbogle, who saw it on Gardenweb, that got it from Instructables. All of which I recommend.

Instuctables gives specific instructions on how to make a compost sifter that rolls on wheels similar to a dryer's action. Reducing the work required and increasing the speed with which the sifting gets done.

Vegetable Variety Resource

Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners, this site is provided by Cornell University. You can join in or just use it as a resource. Launched in 2004, this site includes over 5,600 vegetable variety descriptions with seed sources, more than 3,400 reviews from more than 2,300 registered users, and online tools are available to help you find the best varieties for your garden. All of the vegetable growers in our club should be a part of this community.

Urban Orcharding

I found this amazing video about urban orcharding on this blog. If you ever wanted lots of fruit trees, but thought you didn't have enough room then check out this site and specifically the video Starting Your Urban Orchard -Your Guide to Green - Greg's Blog. Greg's method of growing fruit from normal sized fruit trees that have been sort of bonzai'd is terrific. I am trying it on a peach tree in my backyard and if it is successful you can beleive there will be more fruit trees in my future.

Craig's List

My final recommendation is to check out Craig's List for two things: First, as recommended by Laura Sims, check out the "Free" pages. I believe Laura found a treasure trove that way. And secondly, check out any edible offerings. Eating local may be easier than you think if a neighbor, that you just haven't met yet, has an over abundance from their garden that they would like to sale or share.

Technology has turned out to be a great thing for those of us that like to spend time in the garden even if Macintosh's don't grow on trees....oh wait... :o)